> Issue Briefs > Bioethics

29 Billion Tax Dollars and the Fed Owns Your Medical Identity

Posted: September 28, 2012
By: Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L.

The Obama administration aim’s to create, by sequestration, a federal patient data bank where medical records of individuals will be stored on federally funded Health Information Exchanges. At an estimated cost of 29 billion taxpayer dollars and risk to personal … Read

Justice and the Problem of Patient Privacy: Federal Sequestration of Patient Records

Posted: September 28, 2012
By: Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L.

Advances in science, medicine and information technology (as well as hacking and piracy) have complicated the maintaining of rightful patient privacy. Sophisticated methods for securing and storing personal information, even down to an individual’s complete genetic blueprint, are fast becoming … Read

Carrying Out End-of-Life Refusal Orders in a ‘Culture of Refusal’

Posted: July 5, 2012
By: E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.

2 Criteria to Determine Licitness of Rejecting Life Sustaining Treatment WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 4, 2012 (Zenit.org ).- Here is a response to a question on bioethics, answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation. Q: I am a … Read

A Longtime Practitioner of IVF Repudiates the “Making” of Babies

Posted: June 13, 2012
By: William E. May

Dr. Anthony Caruso practiced IVF for 15 years, and for the final 10 had a thriving practice in Chicago. In 2008 he abandoned this practice and gave superb reasons for doing so. He was interviewed in September 2010 by MercatorNet, … Read

Three Cheers for the CDF: A Long Overdue Admonition

Posted: June 7, 2012
By: E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.

Errors in US Ethicist’s Teaching Pointed Out By E. Christian Brugger WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 6, 2012 (Zenit.org ).- For all the weaknesses with Catholic moral theology in the two centuries before Vatican II, one weakness it did not suffer from … Read

Virtues in Caring for the Sick and Dying Patient

Posted: February 1, 2012
By: William E. May

For years I have been writing articles opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide, grave violations of the inviolable dignity of human bodily persons, whose bodies are integral to their being as human and not spirit persons. Since January 17, I myself … Read

Whose Conscience? Which Religion? The Enemy Is Partially Us

Posted: January 25, 2012
By: E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.

Ruling on Health Care Needs to Be Judged in Light of Truth WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 24, 2012 (Zenit.org ).- There is a lot of anger over the Obama administration’s recently announced decision to require religiously-affiliated employers to cover contraceptive services … Read

Coleman critique available

Posted: January 3, 2012
By: William E. May

A Critique of the Systematic Review Of Induced Abortion and Mental Health Released by the Royal College of Psychiatrists Priscilla K. Coleman, Ph.D. December 13, 2011 The Royal College of Psychiatrist’s recently conducted review of scientific literature published … Read

The Morality of “GIFT” and “IUI”

Posted: December 6, 2011
By: William E. May

Background and Introduction
In September 2010 Culture-of-Life.org posted on this website my article, “Clarification of GIFT and IUI: Assisting or Substituting the Conjugal Act?” Dr. José Florez had kindly corrected me for an article in Zenit in which I confused GIFT or Gamete Intrafallopian Tube Transfer with IUI or Homologous Intrauterine Insemination. He informed me that GIFT is seldom used today in the U.S. because IUI is simpler and apparently more effective.

Procedure
I will first describe GIFT/IUI, identify the moral issue, summarize arguments given until 2011 pro and con the moral rightness of these procedures, summarize a somewhat new argument in opposition to them advanced in 2011 by Helen Watt, briefly reflect on the way “the language of the body” relates to their morality, and offer a Conclusion.

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Why Would the Leader in Embryonic Stem Cell Research Drop Out?

Posted: December 1, 2011
By: E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.

Translating Theory Into Treatments More Difficult Than Expected

WASHINGTON, D.C., NOV. 30, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a question on bioethics asked by a ZENIT reader and answered by the fellows of the Culture of Life Foundation.

Q: Now that Geron has discontinued its embryonic stem cell research, while at the same time adult stem cell experiments have had a number of successful trials, what does this mean for the stem cell debate? – FJF, Australia.

E. Christian Brugger replies:

Two weeks ago a bombshell exploded on the field of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) medicine. The undisputed leader in clinical research on hESCs, Geron Corporation, announced that it was immediately ending its clinical trials using hESCs and pulling out of the embryonic stem cell business altogether to focus on cancer research.

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